Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on Fire!
The best science fiction asks interesting questions that can’t really be answered by non-genre fiction. One of those questions that gets asked is how we define ourselves as human beings. Star Trek explored this with characters like Spock, Worf, and Data, for instance. Mickey 17 asks this question in the title character. Our title character Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is essentially a clone, someone who in the context of the film has been basically 3D printed. Is he human? Depending on who you ask in the movie, you’re going to get a different answer.
Going into Mickey 17, I figured there was going to be a lot of similarity to Moon, and there is some surface similarity. But where Moon is about deep, existential questions, Mickey 17 is much more visceral and also much more political. In today’s climate, it’s hard not to see this through a political lens, whether that was intended or not. However, since this was written in part and directed by Bong Joon Ho, looking at this politically is going to more often than not be the right way to do things.
